In the informal settlements of Ahmedabad, India, women are painting their roofs white and layering them with coconut husks and paper waste—ingenious cooling strategies born not from laboratory research but from the everyday necessity of surviving temperatures that have exceeded 46°C across the northwest and center of the country. While hospitals set up dedicated heatstroke units and governments issue warnings, a quieter crisis is reshaping women's lives in ways that mortality statistics cannot capture: nearly 490,000 people die from heat globally each year, but the figure obscures how extreme temperatures are fragmenting the social worlds, autonomy, and dignity of women across India and tropical regions worldwide.
The heat women experience is distinctly different from that faced by men, shaped by layers of culture, labor, and domestic expectation that compound physical vulnerability. In many parts of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, women are the primary household caretakers, forced to spend prolonged hours indoors in poorly ventilated homes without insulation or cooling—a confinement that erodes well-being far beyond health. In India and the Maldives, cultural and religious norms require women to wear more clothing than men, leaving them feeling hot and uncomfortable in ways that are anything but trivial. In informal workplaces across India and Bangladesh, inadequate sanitation disproportionately affects women, who sometimes drink less water to avoid unhygienic toilet facilities, a choice that leads to dehydration and cascading health problems.
The psychological and social toll is profound. Research from Burkina Faso reveals that heat increases the isolation of pregnant women, severing connections to friends and family who are central to their well-being. In rural Kenya, pregnant women who struggled with outdoor tasks during extreme heat reported being perceived as "weak" or "lazy"—a significant blow in communities where a woman's worth is tied to domestic expectations. The dangers extend further: in Cameroon, women suffering from extreme heat at home were nearly three times more likely to report an increase in domestic violence. In Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Nepal, heat waves have been linked to rises in child marriage, as financially struggling families force unions on their daughters to reduce household costs, frequently leading to diminished safety and power for young women.
Yet women are not waiting for institutions to act. In Bangladesh, women have built shaded, ventilated rooms attached to their houses that offer both sun protection and privacy while doubling as gathering spots for community meetings. In Jakarta, women have established shaded communal areas that function as informal cooling centers. These "everyday adaptations"—small-scale, grassroots practices that emerge from daily routine rather than institutional programs—represent how low-income communities cope with heat while simultaneously addressing social connection and community building. They are acts of resistance and resilience, yet they remain largely invisible to the policymakers designing climate responses.
As heat waves grow more frequent and intense, climate adaptation policies must move beyond treating heat as a gender-neutral challenge. Recognizing that heat affects women and men differently—shaped not just by biology but by culture, power, and intersections of class, caste, and migratory status—is essential. The women painting roofs white in Ahmedabad and building cooler spaces in Bangladesh are already leading the way. What remains is for institutions to see them, support them, and learn from their ingenuity.